WINING BOY: Say what?

DOAKER: About three weeks ago. I had just come back from down there. Sutter couldn’t have been dead more than three days. He was sitting over there at the piano. I come out to go to work . . . and he was sitting right there. Had his hand on top of his head just like Berniece said. I believe he broke his neck when he fell in the well. I kept quiet about it. I didn’t see no reason to upset Berniece.

WINING BOY: Did he say anything? Did he say he was looking for Boy Willie?

DOAKER: He was just sitting there. He ain’t said nothing. I went on out the door and left him sitting there. I figure as long as he was on the other side of the room everything be alright. I don’t know what I would have done if he had started walking toward me.

WINING BOY: Berniece say he was calling Boy Willie’s name.

DOAKER: I ain’t heard him say nothing. He was just sitting there when I seen him. But I don’t believe Boy Willie pushed him in the well. Sutter here cause of that piano. I heard him playing on it one time. I thought it was Berniece but then she don’t play that kind of music. I come out here and ain’t seen nobody, but them piano keys was moving a mile a minute. Berniece need to go on and get rid of it. It ain’t done nothing but cause trouble.

WINING BOY: I agree with Berniece. Boy Charles ain’t took it to give it back. He took it cause he figure he had more right to it than Sutter did. If Sutter can’t understand that … then that’s just the way that go. Sutter dead and in the ground . . . don’t care where his ghost is. He can hover around and play on the piano all he want. I want to see him carry it out the house. That’s what I want to see. What time Berniece get home? I don’t see how I let her get away from me this morning.

DOAKER: You up there sleep. Berniece leave out of here early in the morning. She out there in Squirrel Hill cleaning house for some bigshot down there at the steel mill. They don’t like you to come late. You come late they won’t give you your carfare. What kind of business you got with Berniece?

WINING BOY: My business. I ain’t asked you what kind of business you got.

DOAKER: Berniece ain’t got no money. If that’s why you was trying to catch her. She having a hard enough time trying to get by as it is. If she go ahead and marry Avery . . . he working every day . . . she go ahead and marry him they could do alright for themselves. But as it stands she ain’t got no money.

WINING BOY: Well, let me have five dollars.